HealthCare Outreach in the News
San Fun Run Supporting HealthCare Outreach - Hornsby Advocate, 15 October 2009
SAH Doctors Treat Ostracised Nepalese Women - Hornsby Advocate, 5 November 2009
Helping Heal the World - Private Hospital Magazine, December 2009
21st Anniversary
In 2007 Health Care Outreach celebrated 21 years of operation at a special anniversary presentation by Federal Member for Bradfield Dr Brendan Nelson.
Dr Nelson presented certificates to members of teams that traveled during the 21st anniversary year.
“The altruism of the volunteers in Sydney Adventist Hospital’s Health Care Outreach Program who travel across the world to transform and save the lives of people they’ve never met, and to share their skills with local medical and nursing teams in the hope they can leave a legacy of self sufficiency, is inspiring – they are great ambassadors for Australia.”
Sydney Adventist Hospital Nursing Executive Officer Mrs Annette Baldwin is a veteran of 15 of the over 80 trips made during the last 21 years.
“I am constantly amazed at the generosity of people who travel across the world to save the lives of people they have never met. Surgeons, anaesthetists, physiotherapists, intensive care and operating theatre nurses, pathology technicians, bio-medical engineers and others, all freely donate their skills and time and contribute significantly towards the costs.”
“What they achieve is truly inspiring. Up to fifty patients can commonly be operated on during one fourteen-day trip. During a 2006 visit to Papua New Guinea over sixty-four lives were transformed by cardiac surgery. Equally generous is the team members willingness to share their skills to leave a legacy of self-sufficiency”.
21-year veteran of the Operation Open Heart program, Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr Alan Gale says his involvement has been both life enriching and life affirming.
“The most traumatic decision for the medical teams has been having to choose one patient over another for treatment - in some countries we know we are their only hope of survival – limited resources mean we can only choose patients with the best possible outcomes – sometimes it is a gut wrenching decision.”
